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Bringing IT Out of the Shadows

Last week, we released our survey findings taking a look at the perception of IT policies in the workplace. The data highlights how such policies help or hinder day-to-day productivity, collaboration and innovation. It’s clear people are going to the cloud to get stuff done.

One thing that definitely stood out is that individuals that self-identified as IT professionals were significantly more likely to resort to risky behaviors such as transferring work documents to a personal device to complete their work. They are also more likely than the average worker to leverage the cloud for personal use on corporate devices, with 60% of IT professionals indicating that’s how they like to work.

IT workers are more than twice as likely to download an application they were not authorized to use on a corporate device in order to do their job. When it comes to personal devices, 67% of IT professionals and administrators said they have downloaded an application they use for work on a personal device, such as a phone, laptop, or tablet.

Are IT users going rogue?

If your view of Shadow IT means users need to be better controlled, instead of a warning sign that something is wrong within your organization, maybe, but we say no.

When companies deny access to certain applications, they may be getting between their employees and how they want to work. Employees are smarter; they’ll inevitably find a way around it. According to our own data, more than 55% of all employees use their company credentials to login to at least one cloud application. And even though most organizations discourage sharing company information with personal accounts, more than 40% of all external sharing that happens is just that, which is a major issue as companies try to control or restrict access.

For the most part, an IT professional tends to be a little more tech-savvy than your average employee. It’s not surprising then, they would take advantage of the technology available to look for optimum efficiency, and shortcuts, in their work more often.

In organization where this is the case, it is clear that companies and policies are not keeping pace with technology adoption and are failing their workers. While there should be controls in place to prevent a user from downloading a potentially malicious app, companies also need to understand what apps are being downloaded and why. If there is an opportunity to drive adoption of apps to help make users more productive without risking corporate data, companies should take it.

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